The startup’s three founders will remain outside Nvidia. CEO Eiso Kant, co-founder Jason Warner and operations executive Margarida Garcia are expected to continue working on research projects, while the group of engineers joining Nvidia will contribute to Nemotron.
Nvidia plans to use Poolside’s technology and engineering talent to strengthen its open-weight AI models, according to The Wall Street Journal. The effort puts Nemotron alongside models from Chinese developers including DeepSeek and Kimi K3, as well as systems from U.S. companies OpenAI and Anthropic. Poolside had previously positioned its Laguna S open-weight model as an alternative to Chinese offerings.
The deal follows a difficult period for Poolside’s own efforts to secure the computing capacity required for model development. According to its shareholder letter, the startup needed to raise $2 billion within a narrow window to pay for a 40,000-GB300 cluster but was unable to complete the financing in time. “At the end of last year, we had a 6 week window in which to raise $2 billion dollars to pay for a 40,000 GB300 cluster coming online in January,” the letter said. “We didn't close it in time, and we lost the cluster.”
Under the licensing arrangement, Poolside is expected to distribute the $6 billion payment to its investors before the end of next year, according to The Next Web. Nvidia’s separate $1 billion investment gives the startup additional capital while allowing it to remain independent.
The structure resembles other technology licensing agreements Nvidia has pursued. The company previously committed $20 billion for access to Groq’s inference technology while bringing key engineers from the startup into Nvidia. Groq remained independent and subsequently raised additional capital.
Nvidia also reached a similar agreement with chip-interconnect startup Enfabrica for roughly $900 million. Across Poolside, Groq and Enfabrica, Nvidia’s commitments total about $27 billion, with each transaction structured around access to technology and engineering talent rather than an outright acquisition.
For Nvidia, the Poolside agreement adds both model-building software and more than 100 engineers to its Nemotron effort. For Poolside, the arrangement provides a multibillion-dollar licensing payment and a new investment while leaving the company and its founders independent.
This analysis is based on reporting from Investor's Business Daily.
Image courtesy of X (Mark Kretschmann).
This article was generated with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy and quality.
